Starting by recruiting one person in Paris, Deutsche Bank’s
RREEF Alternatives division also plans to tap talent in the U.S.
and Asia, Pierre Cherki, who heads the unit of the Frankfurt-
based bank, said yesterday in an interview.

“We’re filling a number of gaps in terms of people that
need to come and support the growth of the business,” Cherki
said yesterday, after announcing the members of a nine-member
team that will lead RREEF Alternatives. “We’re looking to hire
one person in Paris to head the real estate side.”

RREEF is also looking to fill “a number of positions in
the U.S. on the asset management or the acquisitions side” as
well as research positions in Asia and Europe, he said.

Deutsche Bank, which last week reported a 2.17 billion-euro
($2.92 billion) loss for the fourth quarter, is counting on
RREEF and the other units of its asset- and wealth-management
business to help lift profits by 2015 with a mix of cost cuts
and earnings growth. Cherki said investors want the kind of
assets he offers as Europe’s debt crisis makes the stable
returns from real estate and infrastructure an attractive
alternative to government bonds.

Paris Position

Cherki will be in Paris on Wednesday for interviews, and
RREEF frequently looks to hire bankers with knowledge of both
infrastructure and real estate as the two are similar, he said.

Real estate accounts for about 75 percent of RREEF’s
portfolio while the remainder is made up of infrastructure
assets, he said, without specifying how he expects that balance
to develop. RREEF Real Estate managed 41 billion euros at the
end of September, according to its website.

Maximilien de Wailly left as head of the Paris office for
real estate in December after eight years and eight months at
RREEF to join Morgan Stanley (MS), where he is a managing director,
according to his LinkedIn social network profile. Anne Genot, a
member of his team at RREEF, moved to Allianz SE (ALV)’s French real
estate unit, her page on Agefi.fr, a networking website, shows.

Deutsche Bank said on Oct. 30 that it was eliminating 1,993
jobs across the company, with 562 of them at the asset and
wealth management unit. Cherki said the cuts at his unit were
completed “very quickly because these sort of exercises are
painful and disruptive.”

RREEF currently has four employees in Paris who are
supported by colleagues in Frankfurt and London, said Cherki.

“The focus of most real estate investors in Europe is
still on the three largest European markets -- the U.K., Germany
and France,” said Cherki. “We have a meaningful investment
pipeline in all three markets.”